


Union Street

by romanticalgirl



Series: behind the song [14]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 12:10:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>None but the brave.</p><p>Based on the Bruce Springsteen songs "Where the Bands Are" and "None but the Brave"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Union Street

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 12-23-07

The street hasn’t changed, but he has. His eyes no longer see bright neon and opportunity, but the dirt and grime and trash and everything he missed. Now the neon blinks sporadically, on the fritz and too expensive to fix. There’s still music, but it’s the sad drone of wasted lives, drunk on cheap beer that costs too much and a town gone to seed.

He sits on the hood of his car, wrapped up in a leather jacket that’s seen better days and fits too tight around the arms and doesn’t zip anymore, too tight around the gut. He doesn’t recognize the faces, though he sees them every day. They’re the same guys who move into the mill and the factory and the plant with him, putting on a hard hat and blue coveralls to work the line, to make something nobody really needs, but are pretty sure they can’t live without. He doesn’t breathe air or music anymore, but smoke and exhaust, and something’s killing him, but he’s not sure he’s ready to die.

There’s a new bar on Union, and that’s what he’s doing here tonight. Dressed up in his jeans and t-shirt and jacket, trying to be the kid he used to be. He sees them milling down at the end of the street, getting out of jacked up cars and stuff their parents can’t afford, pampered and princessed, folks trying to save them from the reality that’s going to eat them alive for as long as they can. 

He slides off the hood and starts walking, hands in his pockets against the cold that he never used to feel. He hears them laughing and shouting and calling each other’s names, boys and girls falling into each other with the first taste of freedom and the first sip of beer and the low hum of a bass line. He feels it in his blood and he remembers her, sharper than all the other memories, dress flying out behind her as she ran out her door, sliding into his car and his kiss like they had all the world in the palm of their hands.

He watches them for a minute, cigarettes they shouldn’t be smoking stubbed out on the sidewalk before they dive into the sweat and heat and sound, a wall of it pulsing just inside the door. He crosses the street against traffic, drawn like a moth to the flame, his heart beating like it’s ready to burn. The neon’s bright orange and hissing in the cold air, and the windows are filled with other colors offering wares at twice the cost of a six pack at the corner store. He hasn’t got the money, but he’s got the time and the heart, broken too hard to heal. 

Walking in is like breathing again and the guitars ring out like they’ve got news to tell him, chords and magic alight in the air and dancing, swirling around the couples giving in to it all. He looks around and they’re all too young for him, and its far too late, though it hasn’t been so long since he was here, since he thought here was the start of something new. He wants to warn them all that it’s an illusion, that it’s a lie, but the music reaches out and closes his eyes and fills him up, and he forgets everything he needs to say and remembers.

She was hell on wheels and he promised her the world, promised her he’d be something, be more than another body in a production line. She believed him and held him when his daddy died and they fitted him for a funeral suit and his blue coveralls the same day. She called him on the phone and mailed him letters from somewhere else, but he stopped hearing the music and started hearing the ticking of the time clock, and she chased the dream he wanted to give her. 

He opens his eyes as the song changes, something he remembers from two years and a lifetime ago, and he sees a girl that has dreams in her eyes. He asks her to dance and she moves into his arms. He tells her about dreams and she laughs and agrees with him, and he tells her, before he thanks her for the dance, that they don’t come knocking on your door, that you have to do more than run to catch them.

You have to fly.


End file.
